Montgomery Transition Team hears community feedback

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed and the Montgomery United Transition Team held a Municipal Assembly Wednesday night to encourage public participation in the process of building the blueprint for a better Montgomery.

Dozens of community members attended the meeting. Mayor Reed was seeking “community solutions” to complement the work the transition team has been doing for the past several weeks.

“We wanted to be sure that this process was inclusive and we wanted to be sure that it was open and transparent so that you could give some of your ideas and some of your community solutions to some of the areas that we were talking about throughout the campaign,” said Reed.

There were six topics: Economic Development, Health & Human Services, Cultural Arts and Entertainment, Public Safety, Education, and Infrastructure and Transportation...funding being a topic that impacted every category and caused a lot of concern.

“I’m concerned about what they’re going to do with us, the budget, everything,” said Dorris McMurry of Montgomery Area Transit.

The topic that many people wanted to hear centered around education, the category that the city has the least control over.

"It’s been 10 years since I retired and I haven’t seen a pay raise,” said retired teacher Dorothy Glenn-Henry.

There was also a lot of discussion about making the city look better to attract new businesses.

“If we don’t already have in place rules and guidelines to be cleaned up and made more attractive for new developments to come in and build next to, we’re not going to get very far,” one Montgomery resident said.

“I’m 85 years old, I want to see my city clean one time,” said another resident.

The transition team is going to take all of the community feedback from tonight’s meeting and create a final report to be presented to Mayor Reed in early March.